BYFRANCIS 
THOMPSON 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
EDWIN  CORLE 

PRESENTED  BY 
JEAN  CORLE 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 


HE  HOUND  OF 
HEAVEN 

By  FRANCIS  THOMPSON 


NEW  YORK 
DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

J934 


COPYBIdHT,  1922, 

BY  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  INC, 


PRINTED    IN    THE  tT.    S.   A, 


Colleg-e 
Library 


INTRODUCTION 

The  Rev.  Mark  J.  McNeal.  S.  J.,  who  was  one 
of  the  successors  of  Lafcadio  Hearn  in  the  chair  of 
English  Literature  at  the  Tokyo  Imperial  Univer- 
sity, in  an  interesting  article  recounts  the  following 
incident  of  his  experience  in  that  institution.  "I 
was  seated  on  the  examining  board  with  Professor 
Ichikawa,  the  dean  of  the  English  department  .  .  . 
There  entered  the  room  a  student  whom  I  recog- 
nized as  among  the  best  in  the  class,  a  sharp  young 
chap  with  big  Mongolian  eyes,  and  one  who  had 
never  to  my  knowledge  given  any  hint  of  even  a 
leaning  toward  Christianity.  I  remembered,  how- 
ever, that  his  thesis  submitted  for  a  degree  had 
been  a  study  of  Francis  Thompson.  Following 
the  usual  custom,  I  began  to  question  him  about 
his  thesis. 

'  'Why  did  you  choose  Thompson?' 
"  'Well,  he  is  quite  a  famous  poet.' 

5 


ft,        m       . 


INTRODUCTION 

"  'What  kind  of  poet  is  he?' 
;  'We  might  call  him  a  mystic.' 

'  'Is  he  a  mystic  of  the  orthodox  sort,  like 
Cynewulf  or  Crashaw;  or  an  unorthodox  mystic, 
like  Blake  or  Shelley?' 

"  'Oh,  he's  orthodox.' 

1  'Well,  now,  what  do  you  consider  his  greatest 
production?' 

"  'Why,  I  should  say  "The  Hound  of  Heaven."  ' 

;  'Well,  what  on  earth  does  Thompson  mean 
by  that  Hound?' 

"  'He  means  God.' 

'  'But  is  not  that  a  rather  irreverent  way  for 
Thompson  to  be  talking  about  God,  calling  Him 
a  hound?  What  does  he  mean  by  comparing  God 
to  a  hound?' 

'  'Well,  he  means  the  pursuit  of  God.' 

'  'Oh,  I  see,  Thompson  is  pursuing  God,  is  he?' 

'  'Oh,  no.  He  is  rather  running  away  from 
God.' 

'  'Well,  then,  God  is  pursuing  Thompson,  is 
that  it?' 

"  'Yes,  that's  it.' 

6 


INTRODUCTION 

"  'But,  see  here;  according  to  Thompson's  be- 
lief God  is  everywhere,  isn't  He?' 

"  'Yes.' 

"  'Well,  then,  how  can  God  be  going  after 
Thompson?  Is  it  a  physical  pursuit?' 

"  'No.     It  is  a  moral  pursuit.' 

"'A  moral  pursuit!  What's  that?  What  is 
God  after?' 

"  'He  is  after  Thompson's  love.' 

"And  then  we,  the  Jesuit  and  the  Buddhist,  be- 
gan to  follow  the  windings  and  turnings  of  that 
wondrous  poem,  the  most  mystic  and  spiritual 
thing  that  has  been  written  since  St.  Teresa  laid 
down  her  pen.  What  the  other  member  of  the  ex- 
amining board  thought  of  it  all  I  never  heard. 
But  I  think  I  acquired  a  satisfactory  answer  to 
that  question  so  often  put  to  me:  Can  the  Japa- 
nese really  grasp  a  spiritual  truth?  Do  they  really 
get  at  the  meaning  of  Christianity?  This,  of  a 
race  that  has  produced  more  martyrs  than  any 
other  nation  since  the  fall  of  Rome  and  that  kept 
the  Faith  for  two  centuries  without  a  visible  symbol 
or  document!" 

7 


INTRODUCTION 

The  incident  supplies  matter  for  other  conclu* 
sions  more  germane  to  the  subject  of  this  essay. 
The  late  Bert  Leston  Taylor,  a  journalist  whose 
iournalism  had  a  literary  facet  of  critical  bril- 
liance, once  declared  that  he  could  not  perceive  the 
excellence  of  Francis  Thompson's  poetry.  When 
someone  suggested  that  it  might  be  that  he  was  not 
spiritual  enough,  the  retort  was  laconic  and  crush- 
ing, "Or,  perhaps,  not  ecclesiastical  enough." 
Like  most  good  retorts  Taylor's  had  more  wit  than 
truth.  He  was  obsessed  by  the  notion,  prevalent 
among  a  certain  class  of  literary  critics,  that  Fran- 
cis Thompson's  fame  was  the  artificially  stimu- 
lated applause  of  a  Catholic  coterie,  whose  enthu- 
siasm could  hardly  be  shared  by  readers  with  no 
particular  curiosity  about  Catholic  ideas  or  modes 
of  religion.  It  was  probably  this  obsession  which 
prompted  that  able  critic,  Mr.  H.  D.  Traill,  to 
write  to  Mr.  Wilfrid  Meynell  when  the  "Hound 
of  Heaven"  first  appeared:  "I  quite  agree  with 
you  in  thinking  him  a  remarkable  poet,  but,  if  he 
is  ever  to  become  other  than  a  'poet's  poet'  or 
'critic's  poet' — if  indeed  it  is  worth  anyone's  am- 

8 


INTRODUCTION 

bition  to  be  other  than  that — it  will  only  be  by 
working  in  a  different  manner.  A  'public'  to 
appreciate  the  'Hound  of  Heaven'  is  to  me  incon- 
ceivable." Mr.  William  Archer,  an  experienced 
judge  of  popular  likes,  was  of  the  same  opinion. 
"Yet,"  Francis  Thompson's  biographer  tells  us, 
"in  the  three  years  after  Thompson's  death  the 
separate  edition  of  the  'Hound  of  Heaven'  sold 
fifty  thousand  copies ;  and,  apart  from  anthologies, 
many  more  thousands  were  sold  of  the  books  con- 
taining it."  When  the  "Hound  of  Heaven"  is 
selected  for  study,  and,  explained  in  words  of  one 
syllable,  by  a  young  Japanese  student  in  the  Tokyo 
Imperial  University  almost  thirty  years  after  the 
poem  was  published,  one  can  hardly  maintain 
that  it  calls  for  certain  ecclesiastical  affiliations 
before  it  can  be  understood  and  felt,  or  that  its 
"public"  is  necessarily  circumscribed. 

It  must  be  owned  indeed  that  Francis  Thompson 
was  a  puzzle  to  his  contemporaries  of  the  nine- 
ties. He  paid  the  usual  penalty  of  vaulting  origi- 
nality. The  decade  is  famous  for  its  bold  experi- 
ments and  shining  successes  in  the  art  of  poetry. 

9 


INTRODUCTION 

One  might  expect  that  a  public,  grown  accustomed 
to  exquisitely  wrought  novelties  and  eager  to  ex- 
tend them  a  welcome,  would  have  been  preordained 
to  recognize  and  hail  the  genius  of  Thompson. 
But  it  was  not  so.  The  estheticism  of  the  nineties, 
for  all  its  sweet  and  fragile  flowers,  was  rooted  in 
the  dark  passions  of  the  flesh.  Its  language  was 
the  language  of  death  and  despair  and  annihila- 
tion and  the  Epicurean  need  of  exhausting  the  hed- 
onistic possibilities  of  life  ere  the  final  engulfing 
in  darkness  and  silence.  When  the  speech  of 
Thompson,  laden  with  religion  and  spirituality  and 
Christian  mystery,  broke  with  golden  turbulence 
upon  the  world  of  the  nineties,  the  critics  were 
abashed  and  knew  not  what  to  think  of  it.  The 
effect  was  somewhat  like  that  produced  by  Attwa- 
ter,  in  Stevenson's  "The  Ebb-Tide,"  when  he  began 
suddenly  to  discourse  on  Divine  Grace  to  the  a- 
mazement  of  Herrick  and  his  crew  of  scoundrels 
from  the  stolen  Farallone.  "Oh,"  exclaimed  the 
unspeakable  Huish,  when  they  had  recovered 
breath,  "Oh,  look  'ere,  turn  down  the  lights  at  once, 
and  the  Band  of  'Ope  will  oblige!  This  ain't  a 

10 


INTRODUCTION 

spiritual  seance."  It  had  something  akin  to  the 
madness  of  poor  Christopher  Smart  when  he  fell 
into  the  habit  of  dropping  on  his  knees  and  pray- 
ing in  the  crowded  London  streets.  There  was 
incongruity,  verging  on  the  indecent,  in  this  intru- 
sion of  religion  into  art,  as  if  an  archangel  were 
to  attend  an  afternoon  tea  in  Mayfair  or  an  ab- 
sinthe session  in  a  Bohemian  cafe.  It  was,  in  Dr. 
Johnson's  phrase,  "an  unnecessary  deviation  from 
the  usual  modes  of  the  world"  which  struck  the 
world  dumb. 

The  poetry  of  Francis  Thompson  appeared  in 
three  small  volumes:  "Poems,"  published  in  1893; 
"Sister  Songs,"  in  1895;  and  "New  Poems,"  in 
1897.  The  first  of  these  volumes  contained  the 
"Hound  of  Heaven";  though  it  staggered  reviewers 
at  large,  they  yielded  dubious  and  carefully  meas- 
ured praise  and  waited  for  developments.  The 
pack  was  unleashed  and  the  hue-and-cry  raised 
on  the  coming  of  "Sister  Songs"  and  "New  Poems." 
Andrew  Lang  and  Mr.  Arthur  Symons  led  the 
chorus  of  disapproval.  It  is  amusing  to  read 
now  that  Francis  Thompson's  "faults  are  funda- 

U 


INTRODUCTION 

mental.  Though  he  uses  the  treasure  of  the  Tem- 
ple, he  is  not  a  religious  poet.  The  note  of  a  true 
spiritual  passion  never  once  sounds  in  his  book." 
Another  critic  of  the  poet  declares  that  "nothing 
could  be  stronger  than  his  language,  nothing 
weaker  than  the  impression  it  leaves  on  the  mind. 
It  is  like  a  dictionary  of  obsolete  English  suffering 
from  a  severe  fit  of  delirium  tremens."  A  promi- 
nent literary  periodical  saw,  in  the  attempt  to  foist 
Thompson  on  the  public  as  a  genuine  poet,  a  sec- 
tarian effort  to  undermine  the  literary  press  of 
England.  In  the  course  of  a  year  the  sale  of 
"Sister  Songs"  amounted  to  349  copies.  The 
"New  Poems"  fared  worse;  its  sale,  never  large, 
practically  ceased  a  few  years  after  its  appearance, 
three  copies  being  sold  during  the  first  six  months 
of  1902. 

And  all  this  despite  strong  recommendations 
from  fastidious  quarters.  George  Meredith's 
recognition  was  instantaneous  and  unreserved. 
Henley's  was  accompanied  by  reproofs.  Mr. 
Richard  LeGallienne  was  enthusiastic.  Mr.  Will- 
iam Archer  said  to  a  friend,  "This  is  not  work 

12 


INTRODUCTION 

which  can  possibly  be  popular  in  the  wide  sense; 
but  it  is  work  that  will  be  read  and  treasured  cen- 
turies hence  by  those  who  really  care  for  poetry." 
And  he  wrote  to  Thompson,  "I  assure  you  no  con- 
ceivable reaction  can  wipe  out  or  overlay  such  work 
as  yours.  It  is  firm-based  on  the  rock  of  absolute 
beauty;  and  this  I  say  all  the  more  confidently  be- 
cause it  does  not  happen  to  appeal  to  my  own  spec- 
ulative, or  even  my  own  literary,  prejudices." 
The  most  extravagant  admirer  of  all,  and  the  one 
who  will  probably  turn  out  to  have  come  nearer 
the  mark  than  any  of  Francis  Thompson's  con- 
temporaries, was  Mr.  J.  L.  Garvin,  the  well  known 
English  leader-writer  in  politics  and  literature. 
"After  the  publication  of  his  second  volume,"  he 
wrote  in  the  English  Bookman,  March  1897,  "when 
it  became  clear  that  the  'Hound  of  Heaven'  and 
'Sister  Songs'  should  be  read  together  as  a  strict 
lyrical  sequence,  there  was  no  longer  any  compar- 
ison possible  except  the  highest,  the  inevitable  com- 
parison with  even  Shakespeare's  Sonnets.  The 
Sonnets  are  the  greatest  soliloquy  in  litera- 
ture. The  'Hound  of  Heaven'  and  'Sister  Songs' 

13 


INTRODUCTION 

are  the  second  greatest;  and  there  is  no  third.  In 
each  case  it  is  rather  consciousness  imaged  in  the 
magic  mirror  of  poetry  than  explicit  autobiogra- 
phy. .  .  .  Even  with  the  greatest  pages  of  'Sister 
Songs'  sounding  in  one's  ears,  one  is  sometimes 
tempted  to  think  the  'Hound  of  Heaven'  Mr. 
Thompson's  high-water  mark  for  unimaginable 
beauty  and  tremendous  import — if  we  do  damnably 
iterate  Mr.  Thompson's  tremendousness,  we  cannot 
help  it,  he  thrusts  the  word  upon  us.  We  do  not 
think  we  forget  any  of  the  splendid  things  of  an 
English  anthology  when  we  say  that  the  'Hound  of 
Heaven'  seems  to  us,  on  the  whole,  the  most  won- 
derful lyric  (if  we  consider  'Sister  Songs'  as  a  se- 
quence of  lyrics)  in  the  language.  It  fingers  all  the 
stops  of  the  spirit,  and  we  hear  now  a  thrilling  and 
dolorous  note  of  doom  and  now  the  quiring  of  the 
spheres  and  now  the  very  pipes  of  Pan,  but  under 
all  the  still  sad  music  of  humanity.  It  is  the  return 
of  the  nineteenth  century  to  Thomas  a  Kempis. 
.  .  .  The  regal  air,  the  prophetic  ardors,  the  apoc- 
alyptic vision,  Mr.  Thompson  has  them  all.  A 
rarer,  more  intense,  more  strictly  predestinate 

14 


INTRODUCTION 

genius  has  never  been  known  to  poetry.  To  many 
this  will  seem  the  simple  delirium  of  over-empha- 
sis. The  writer  signs  for  those  others,  nowise 
ashamed,  who  range  after  Shakespeare's  very  Son- 
nets the  poetry  of  a  living  poet,  Francis  Thomp- 
son." 

We  do  not  associate  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  with 
any  of  the  ideas  in  religion  or  literature  which 
supplied  impulse  to  Francis  Thompson.  It  is  a 
surprise  of  the  first  magnitude  to  find  him  carried 
away  into  the  rapture  of  prophecy  by  the  "Sister 
Songs."  "I  declare,"  he  says  in  an  article  appear- 
ing in  July,  1895,  "that  for  three  days  after  this 
book  appeared  I  read  nothing  else.  I  went  about 
repeating  snatches  of  it — snatches  such  as — 

'The  innocent  moon,  that  nothing  does  but  shine, 
Moves  all  the  labouring  surges  of  the  world.' 

My  belief  is  that  Francis  Thompson  has  a  richer 
natural  genius,  a  finer  poetical  equipment,  than 
any  poet  save  Shakespeare.  Show  me  the  divinest 
glories  of  Shelley  and  Keats,  even  of  Tennyson, 
who  wrote  the  'Lotus  Eaters'  and  the  songs  in  the 
'Princess,'  and  I  think  I  can  match  them  all  out  of 

15 


INTRODUCTION 

this  one  book,  this  little  book  that  can  be  bought  at 
an  ordinary  bookseller's  shop  for  an  ordinary  pro- 
saic crown.  I  fear  that  in  thus  extolling  Francis 
Thompson's  work,  I  am  grossly  outraging  the  can- 
ons of  criticism.  For  the  man  is  alive,  he  gets  up 
of  a  morning  like  common  mortals,  not  improbably 
he  eats  bacon  for  breakfast;  and  every  critic  with 
an  atom  of  discretion  knows  that  a  poet  must  not 
be  called  great  until  he  is  dead  or  very  old.  Well, 
please  yourself  what  you  think.  But,  in  time  to 
come,  don't  say  I  didn't  tell  you."  A  whole  gen- 
eration of  men  has  passed  away  since  these  words 
appeared;  but  they  do  not  seem  to  be  so  fantastic 
and  whimsical  now  as  they  seemed  to  be  then. 

It  can  scarcely  be  claimed  that  the  prophecies 
of  Meredith,  Mr.  Garvin,  and  Mr.  Arnold  Ben- 
nett were  of  the  kind  which  ultimately  assures 
the  event.  The  reading-world  dipped  curiously 
into  the  pages  about  which  there  was  so  much 
conflict  of  opinion;  it  was  startled  and  bewil- 
dered by  a  novel  and  difficult  form  of  verse;  and 
finally  it  agreed  with  the  majority  of  critics  that 
it  was  mostly  nonsense — too  Catholic  to  be  cath- 

16 


INTRODUCTION 

olic.  The  poems  sold  badly,  the  'Hound  of 
Heaven'  faring  best.  It  is  a  common  mark  of 
genius  to  be  ahead  of  its  time.  Even  Thomp- 
son's coreligionists  were  cold.  Indeed,  it  may 
be  said  they  were  the  coldest.  If  the  general 
leading-public  of  the  nineties  suspected  Thomp- 
son of  being  a  Victorian  reactionary  of  ultra- 
montane mould,  the  Catholic  public  feared  him 
for  his  art.  It  was  a  wild  unfettered  thing 
which  took  strange  liberties  with  Catholic  pieties 
and  could  not  be  trusted  to  run  in  divine  grooves. 
One  can  afford  to  extenuate  the  attitude  of  re- 
serve. It  was  a  period  when  brilliant  hetero- 
doxies and  flaunting  decadence  were  in  the  air. 
The  fact  is,  that  critics  and  public  delivered 
Thompson  over  to  the  Catholics;  and  the  Catho- 
lics would  have  nothing  to  do  with  him.  Canon 
Sheehan  could  write  of  Thompson  in  1898: 
"Only  two  Catholics — literary  Catholics — have 
noticed  this  surprising  genius — Coventry  Pat- 
more  and  Wilfrid  Meynell.  The  vast  bulk  of 
our  coreligionists  have  not  even  heard  his  name, 
although  it  is  already  bruited  amongst  the  Im- 

17 


INTRODUCTION 

mortals;  and  the  great  Catholic  poet,  for  whose 
advent  we  have  been  straining  our  vision,  has 
passed  beneath  our  eyes,  sung  his  immortal  songs,, 
and  vanished."  This  was  written  almost  ten  years 
before  Thompson  died,  but  after  his  resolve  to 
write  no  more  poetry. 

It  is  easily  within  the  probabilities  that,  small 
as  was  Thompson's  audience  during  his  lifetime, 
it  would  have  been  still  smaller  but  for  the  ex- 
traneous interest  excited  by  the  strange  story  of 
his  life.  He  was  born  on  December  16,  1859, 
in  Preston,  Lancashire,  whence  he  went  at  the  age 
of  eleven  to  Ushaw  College,  a  Catholic  boarding 
school  for  boys.  This  is  the  college  where  Laf- 
cadio  Hearn  received  his  education;  he  had  left 
the  school  a  year  or  two  before  young  Thomp- 
son's arrival.  Both  boys  were  designed  for  the 
priesthood.  Hearn  lost  his  faith  then  or  shortly 
afterwards:  Thompson's  irregular  habits  of 
dreamy  abstraction  rendered  him  unfit  for  a  sac- 
erdotal career.  When  he  had  completed  his 
course  at  college,  where  he  had  distinguished 
himself  in  English  composition  and  attained  re- 

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INTRODUCTION 

spectable  standing  in  the  classics,  his  father,  a 
hard-working  physician,  entered  the  lad,  now 
eighteen,  as  a  student  of  medicine  in  Owen  Col- 
lege, Manchester.  The  Thompson  family  had 
moved  from  Preston  to  Ashton-under-Lyne,  where 
proximity  to  Manchester  made  it  possible  for  the 
young  medical  student  to  spend  his  nights  at 
home. 

Francis  was  of  the  silent  and  secretive  sort 
where  he  could  not  hope  to  find  intelligent  sym- 
pathy. This,  and  some  cloudy  compromise  with 
his  sense  of  filial  dutifulness,  will  perhaps  ex- 
plain why  he  passed  six  years  as  a  student  of 
medicine  without  any  serious  purpose  of  becoming 
a  physician  and  without  informing  his  father  of 
his  disinclination.  Three  examinations  and  three 
failures  at  intervals  of  a  year  were  necessary  to 
convince  the  father  of  the  true  state  of  affairs. 
Stern  measures  were  adopted;  and,  although  the 
consequences  were  pitifully  tragical,  it  is  hard 
to  blame  the  father  of  Francis.  How  are  we  to 
discover  the  extraordinary  seal  in  a  case  that  re- 
quires special  and  extraordinary  treatment? 

19 


INTRODUCTION 

Francis  was  twenty-four  years  old  with  no 
more  idea  than  a  child's  of  how  life  is  planned  on 
practical  lines  of  prosperity.  The  senior  Thomp- 
son thought  it  time  for  him  to  learn  and  issued 
orders  to  find  employment  of  some  remunerative 
kind.  Accordingly  during  the  next  two  years 
Francis  served  indifferently  for  brief  periods  as 
a  clerk  in  the  shop  of  a  maker  of  surgical  instru- 
ments and  as  a  canvasser  of  an  encyclopedia. 
Both  experiments  in  the  art  of  making  a  living 
were  failures,  increasing  paternal  dissatisfaction. 
The  desperate  young  man  then  enlisted  in  the 
army,  and  after  a  few  weeks'  of  drilling  was  re- 
jected on  the  score  of  physical  weakness. 

During  these  shiftless  and  unhappy  years  as  a 
listless  medical  student  and  laggard  apprentice 
the  poet's  chief  solace  was  the  public  library  of 
Manchester.  In  his  daily  absences  from  home 
his  misery  suggested  another  solace  of  a  sinister 
kind.  After  a  severe  illness  during  his  second 
year  of  medicine  his  mother,  says  his  biographer, 
presented  him  with  a  copy  of  De  Quincey's 
"Confessions  of  an  Opium  Eater."  It  is  in- 

20 


INTRODUCTION 

credible  that  a  helluo  librarian,  like  Thompson, 
should  have  reached  the  age  of  twenty  without 
ever  having  read  a  book  which  is  one  of  the  first 
to  attract  every  bright  school-boy.  This  would 
be  particularly  true  of  a  school-boy  who  lived 
near  Manchester,  De  Quincey's  own  town.  But 
the  evidence  seems  to  be  against  probabilities. 
Thompson  succumbed  completely  to  the  influence 
of  the  great  genius  whose  temper  and  circum- 
stances of  life  were  singularly  like  his  own.  Ex- 
periments in  laudanum  were  made  and  habits  con- 
tracted which  accentuated  a  natural  unfitness  to 
wrestle  with  the  practical  problems  of  getting  on 
and  rendered  family  intercourse  drearier  than 
ever. 

In  1885,  when  he  was  twenty-six  years  old, 
Francis  decided  to  leave  home.  After  a  week  in 
Manchester  he  requested  and  received  from  his 
father  the  price  of  a  railway  ticket  for  London. 
The  trip  to  the  vast  and  strange  city  must  have 
been  made  with  only  the  vaguest  of  plans  for  the 
future.  The  despairing  youth  seemed  to  have  no 
other  purpose  than  to  rid  his  father  of  his  vex- 

21 


INTRODUCTION 

atious  presence.  There  were  friends  in  London,  on 
one  of  whom  Francis  was  directed  to  call  for  a 
weekly  allowance  from  home.  But  a  tempera- 
mental reluctance  kept  the  young  man  away  from 
those  who  could  help  him,  and  even  the  weekly 
allowance  after  a  while  came  to  be  unclaimed. 
The  rough,  cyclonic  forces  of  the  huge  city  caught 
this  helpless  child  of  a  man's  years  in  the  full 
swing  of  their  blind  sweep  and  played  sad  tricks 
with  him.  In  a  period  extending  over  nearly 
three  years  Francis  Thompson  led  the  life  of  a 
vagrant  in  the  streets  and  alleys.  He  made  one 
or  two  brave  essays  at  regular  work  of  the  most 
commonplace  character,  but  without  success.  The 
worn  copies  of  TEschylus  and  Blake  in  the 
pockets  of  this  ragged  and  gaunt  roustabout  con- 
tained no  useful  hints  for  the  difficulties  of  the 
peculiar  situation;  its  harshness  could  be  trans- 
muted into  temporary  and  blessed  oblivion  by 
a  drug  whenever  the  means  for  purchase  could  be 
acquired.  The  Guildhall  Library  was  much 
frequented  until  shabbiness  was  excluded  by  the 
policeman.  This  outcast  poet,  approaching 

22 


INTRODUCTION 

thirty  years  of  age,  was  at  various  times  a  boot- 
black, a  newsboy,  a  vendor  of  matches,  a  noc- 
turnal denizen  of  wharves  and  lounger  on  the 
benches  of  city-parks.  His  cough-racked  frame 
was  the  exposed  target  of  cold  and  rain  and  winds. 
He  became  used  to  hunger.  At  one  time  a  six- 
pence, for  holding  a  horse,  was  his  only  earnings 
for  a  week.  It  was  while  he  was  aimlessly  roam- 
ing the  streets  one  night  almost  delirious  from 
starvation  that  a  prosperous  shoe-merchant,  be- 
nevolently engaged  in  religious  rescue-work,  came 
across  Thompson,  and,  struck  by  the  incongruity 
of  his  gentle  speech,  induced  him  to  accept  em- 
ployment in  his  shop.  But  one  cannot  allow  bus- 
iness to  suffer  on  account  of  an  inveterate  blun- 
derer, even  though  the  blunderer  wear  wings  and 
has  endeared  himself  to  the  family.  Mr.  Mc- 
Master,  kindly  Anglican  lay-missionary,  who 
deserves  grateful  remembrance  for  recognizing 
and  temporarily  helping  merit  under  the  most 
deceptive  disguise,  was  obliged  much  against  his 
inclination  to  dismiss  Francis  and  to  allow  him  to 
fall  back  into  the  pit  of  squalor  and  vagabondage. 

23 


INTRODUCTION 

But  the  few  months  of  reprieve  had  supplied 
Thompson  with  the  impulse  to  write.  Shortly 
after  he  was  dropped  from  the  McMaster  estab- 
lishment Mr.  Wilfrid  Meynell,  the  editor  of  Merry 
England,  a  Catholic  magazine,  received  the  follow- 
ing letter:  "Feb.  23rd,  '87— Dear  Sir,— In  en- 
closing  the  accompanying  article  for  your  inspec- 
tion, I  must  ask  pardon  for  the  soiled  state  of  the 
manuscript.  It  is  due,  not  to  slovenliness,  but  to 
the  strange  places  and  circumstances  under  which 
it  has  been  written.  For  me,  no  less  than  Parolles, 
the  dirty  nurse  experience  has  something  fouled. 
I  enclose  stamped  envelope  for  a  reply,  since  I  do 
not  desire  the  return  of  the  manuscript,  regarding 
your  judgment  of  its  worthlessness  as  quite  final. 
I  can  hardly  expect  that  where  my  prose  fails  my 
verse  will  succeed.  Nevertheless,  on  the  principle 
of  'Yet  will  I  try  the  last,'  I  have  added  a  few 
specimens  of  it,  with  the  off  chance  that  one  may  be 
less  poor  than  the  rest.  Apologizing  very  sincerely 
for  any  intrusion  on  your  valuable  time,  I  remain 
yours  with  little  hope, 

"Francis  Thompson. 
24 


INTRODUCTION 

"Kindly  address  your  rejection  to  the  Charing 
Cross  Post  Office." 

The  unpromising  aspect  of  the  manuscript, 
thus  introduced,  was  the  occasion  of  editorial 
neglect  for  some  months.  When  at  last  Mr.  Mey- 
nell  gave  it  his  attention  he  was  electrified  into 
action.  He  wrote  to  the  address  given  by  Thomp- 
son. The  letter  was  returned  from  the  dead-letter 
office  after  many  days.  Then  he  published  one  of 
the  poems  mentioned  in  the  letter,  "The  Passion 
of  Mary,"  in  the  hope  that  the  author  would  dis- 
close his  whereabouts.  The  plan  succeeded  and 
brought  a  letter  from  Thompson  with  a  new 
address.  Mr.  Meynell  tried  to  waylay  him  at  the 
new  address,  a  chemist's  shop  in  Drury  Lane,  but 
with  characteristic  shiftlessness  the  poet  forgot  to 
call  there  for  possible  letters.  But  the  seller  of 
drugs  finally  established  communications  between 
the  editor  and  the  poet,  and  one  day,  more  than  a 
year  after  Thompson's  first  literary  venture  had 
been  sent,  he  visited  the  office  of  Merry  England. 
Mr.  Everard  Meynell,  the  poet's  biographer,  thus 
describes  the  entrance  of  the  poet  into  his  father's 

25 


INTRODUCTION 

sanctum.  "My  father  was  told  that  Mr.  Thomp- 
son wished  to  see  him.  'Show  him  up,'  he  said, 
and  was  left  alone.  Then  the  door  opened,  and  a 
strange  hand  was  thrust  in.  The  door  closed,  but 
Thompson  had  not  entered.  Again  it  opened, 
again  it  shut.  At  the  third  attempt  a  waif  of  a 
man  came  in.  No  such  figure  had  been  looked 
for;  more  ragged  and  unkempt  than  the  average 
beggar,  with  no  shirt  beneath  his  coat  and  bare  feet 
in  broken  shoes,  he  found  my  father  at  a  loss  for 
words.  'You  must  have  had  access  to  many  books 
when  you  wrote  that  essay,'  was  what  he  said. 
'That,'  said  Thompson,  his  shyness  at  once  re- 
placed by  an  acerbity  that  afterwards  became  one 
of  the  most  familiar  of  his  never-to-be-resented 
mannerisms,  'that  is  precisely  where  the  essay 
fails.  I  had  no  books  by  me  at  the  time  save 
TEschylus  and  Blake.'  There  was  little  to  'be  done 
for  him  at  that  interview  save  the  extraction  of  a 
promise  to  call  again.  He  made  none  of  the  con- 
fidences characteristic  of  a  man  seeking  sympathy 
and  alms.  He  was  secretive  and  with  no  eager- 
ness for  plans  for  his  benefit,  and  refused  the  offer 

26 


INTRODUCTION 

of  a  small  weekly  sum  that  would  enable  him  to 
sleep  in  a  bed  and  sit  at  a  table." 

By  patience  and  delicately  offered  kindnesses 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Meynell  at  length  won  the  difficult 
privilege  of  helping  the  shy,  nervous,  high-strung 
spirit  wandering  in  pain,  hunger  and  exile  amid 
the  indecencies  of  extreme  penury  in  a  great  city. 
They  were  helped  by  the  friendly  sympathy  and 
care  of  Premonstratensian  and  Franciscan  monks. 
Thompson  had  sounded,  and  become  familiar  with, 
the  depths  of  social  degradation  in  all  its  external 
aspects  of  sordidness.  The  most  extraordinary 
part  of  his  singular  experience  is  that  he  affords  a 
striking  instance  of  the- triumph  of  soul  and  mind 
over  beleaguering  circumstance.  The  nightmare 
of  his  environment  failed  to  subdue  him.  He  pre- 
served his  spiritual  sensitiveness,  and  literary 
ideals  of  a  most  exalted  kind,  through  the  most 
depressing  and  demoralizing  experiences.  The 
following  passage  in  that  first  essay  offered  to  Mr. 
Meynell,  entitled  "Paganism:  Old  and  New,"  a 
vindication  of  Christian  over  pagan  ideals  in  art, 
shows  the  rich,  colorful  tone  of  mind  of  one  who 

27 


INTRODUCTION 

could  walk  unstained  among  the  world's  impur- 
ities. "Bring  back  then,  I  say,  in  conclusion,  even 
the  best  age  of  Paganism,  and  you  smite  beauty 
on  the  cheek.  But  you  cannot  bring  back  the  best 
age  of  Paganism,  the  age  when  Paganism  was  a 
faith.  None  will  again  behold  Apollo  in  the  fore- 
front of  the  morning,  or  see  Aphrodite  in  the  upper 
air  loose  the  long  lustre  of  her  golden  locks.  But 
you  may  bring  back — dii  avertant  omen — the  Pa- 
ganism of  the  days  of  Pliny,  and  Statius,  and  Juve- 
nal; of  much  philosophy,  and  little  belief;  of 
superb  villas  and  superb  taste;  of  banquets  for  the 
palate  in  the  shape  of  cookery,  and  banquets  for 
the  eye  in  the  shape  of  art;  of  poetry  singing  dead 
songs  on  dead  themes  with  the  most  polished  and 
artistic  vocalisation;  of  everything  most  polished, 
from  the  manners  to  the  marble  floors;  of  vice 
carefully  drained  out  of  sight,  and  large  fountains 
of  virtue  springing  in  the  open  air; — in  one  word, 
a  most  shining  Paganism  indeed — as  putrescence 
also  shines."  Unlike  George  Gissing  and  so 
many  others  who  had  to  wade  to  celebrity  through 
sloughs  of  bitter  destitution,  Francis  Thompson 

28 


INTRODUCTION 

felt  no  inclination  to  capitalize  his  expert  knowl- 
edge of  back  streets  and  alleys  for  profit  and  the 
morbid  entertainment  of  the  curious.  His  single 
failing  in  yielding  to  the  attraction  of  an  insidious 
drug  seemed  to  be  impotent  to  affect  his  high  ad- 
mirations and  his  clear  perceptions  in  the  regions 
of  honor  and  religion. 

It  is  surely  one  of  the  literary  glories  of  a  dis- 
tinguished family  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Meynell 
succeeded  in  helping  Thompson  to  emancipate  him- 
self from  the  enslavement  of  a  tyrannic  habit. 
His  poetic  genius  began  to  flower  in  the  new  lib- 
erty. For  the  next  ten  years  interest  in  his 
poetry  and  literary  friends  and  connections,  few 
and  select,  made  his  life  comparatively  happy. 
But  he  maintained  a  large  measure  of  independ- 
ence to  the  last.  That  he  was  never  ungrateful 
to  those  who  befriended  him,  his  poems  are  ample 
proof.  But  in  London  he  always  had  his  own 
lodgings  in  a  cheap  but  respectable  quarter  of  the 
city.  His  unpunctual  and  preoccupied  manner 
sometimes  created  small  distresses  for  his  de* 
voted  friends  to  relieve.  During  the  last  ten 

29 


INTRODUCTION 

years  of  his  life  he  wrote  little  poetry.  His  vi- 
tality, never  vigorous,  was  ebbing  and  unequal 
to  the  demands  of  inspired  verse.  But  during 
these  years  of  decline  he  wrote  much  golden 
prose.  He  was  a  regular  and  highly  valued  con- 
tibutor  to  the  Academy,  the  Athenceum,  the  Na- 
tion, and  the  Daily  Chronicle.  One  can  hardly 
fail  to  be  impressed  by  the  mere  industry  of  a 
writer  of  reputed  slack  habits  of  work.  The  pub- 
lished volume  of  his  selected  essays  is  literary 
criticism,  as  learned  and  allusive  as  Matthew 
Arnold's,  and  as  nicely  poised,  with  the  advantage 
of  being  poised  in  more  rarified  heights  than 
Arnold's  wings  could  hope  to  scale.  In  this  book 
is  his  classic  and  most  wonderful  essay  on  Shelley, 
written  before  his  strength  began  to  flag,  in  which 
prose  seems  to  be  carried  off  its  feet,  as  it  were, 
in  a  very  storm  of  poetic  impulse.  The  published 
essays  are  not  a  tithe  of  Thompson's  writings  for 
the  press.  Moreover,  we  have  a  study  of  Blessed 
John  de  la  Salle,  a  little  volume  on  "Health  and 
Holiness,"  and  a  large  "Life  of  St.  Ignatius 
Loyola,"  none  of  them  suggesting  even  remotely 

30 


INTRODUCTION 

the  plantigrade  writing  of  the  mechanical 
hack. 

During  the  last  year  of  his  life,  when  consump- 
tion had  almost  completely  undermined  resistance, 
his  old  habit  reasserted  its  empire.  But  it  was 
not  for  long,  and  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  has- 
tened the  end,  which  came  on  November  13,  1907, 
in  the  Hospital  of  St.  John  and  St.  Elizabeth.  He 
was  buried  in  St.  Mary's  Cemetery,  Kensal  Green, 
and  on  his  coffin  were  roses  from  George  Meredith's 
garden,  with  the  poet-novelist's  message:  "A  true 
poet,  one  of  the  small  band." 

The  "Hound  of  Heaven"  has  been  called  the 
greatest  ode  in  the  English  language.  Such  was 
the  contemporary  verdict  of  some  of  the  most  re- 
spected critics  of  the  time,  and  the  conviction  of  its 
justness  deepens  with  the  passing  of  years.  Recall 
the  writers  of  great  odes,  Milton,  Dryden,  Pope, 
Gray,  Collins,  Wordsworth,  Keats,  Shelley,  Cole- 
ridge,— the  best  they  have  done  will  not  outstare 
the  "Hound  of  Heaven."  Where  shall  we  find 
its  equal  for  exaltation  of  mood  that  knows  no 
fatigue  from  the  first  word  to  the  last?  The 

31 


INTRODUCTION 

motion  of  angelic  hosts  must  be  like  the  move- 
ment of  this  ode,  combining  in  some  marvellous 
and  mysterious  way  the  swiftness  of  lightning 
with  the  stately  progess  of  a  pageant  white  with 
the  blinding  white  light  of  an  awful  Presence. 
The  note  of  modernness  is  the  quality  which  is 
most  likely  to  mislead  us  in  forecasting  favorably 
the  durability  of  contemporary  poetry,  appealing 
as  it  does  to  so  many  personal  issues  irrelevant 
to  the  standards  of  immortal  art.  This  is  pre- 
cisely the  note  which  is  least  conspicuous  in  the 
"Hound  of  Heaven."  The  poem  might  have  been 
written  in  the  days  of  Shakespeare,  or,  in  a  dif- 
ferent speech,  by  Dante  or  Calderon.  The  Rev. 
Francis  P.  LeBuffe,  S.  J.,  has  written  an  interest- 
ing book  on  the  "Hound  of  Heaven,"  pointing  out 
the  analogy  between  the  poem  and  the  psalms  of 
David;  and  another  Jesuit,  the  late  Rev.  J.  F.  X. 
O'Connor,  in  a  published  "Study"  of  the  poem, 
says  that  in  it  Francis  Thompson  "seems  to  sing, 
in  verse,  the  thought  of  St.  Ignatius  in  the  spirit- 
ual exercises, — the  thought  of  St.  Paul  in  the 
tender,  insistent  love  of  Christ  for  the  soul,  and 

32 


INTRODUCTION 

the  yearning  of  Christ  for  that  soul  which  ever 
runs  after  creatures,  till  the  love  of  Christ  wakens 
in  it  a  love  of  its  God,  which  dims  and  deadens 
all  love  of  creatures  except  through  love  for  Him. 
This  was  the  love  of  St.  Paul,  of  St.  Ignatius,  of 
St.  Stanislaus,  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  of  St. 
Clare,  of  St.  Teresa." 

The  neologisms  and  archaic  words  employed  in 
the  poem  seem  to  be  a  legitimate  and  instinctive 
effort  of  the  poet's  inspiration  to  soar  above  the 
limitations  of  time  and  to  liberate  itself  from  the 
transient  accretions  of  a  living,  and  therefore  con- 
stantly changing,  mode  of  speech.  He  strove  after 
an  enfranchisement  of  utterance,  devoid  of  strati- 
fying peculiarities,  assignable  to  no  age  or  epoch, 
and  understood  of  all.  A  soul-shaking  thought, 
prevalent  throughout  Christendom,  was  felt  im- 
aginatively by  a  highly  endowed  poet,  and,  like 
impetuous  volcanic  fires  thai  fling  heavenward 
mighty  fragments  and  boulders  of  mountain  in  their 
red  release,  found  magnificent  expression  in  ele- 
mental grandeurs  of  language,  shot  through  with 
the  wild  lights  of  hidden  flames  and  transcending 

33 


INTRODUCTION 

all  pettiness  of  calculated  artifice  and  fugitive 
fashion. 

The  dominating  idea  in  the  "Hound  of  Heaven" 
is  so  familiar,  so — one  might  say — innate,  that  it 
is  almost  impudent  to  undertake  to  explain  it. 
Even  in  the  cases  of  persons  to  whom  the  reading 
of  poetry  is  an  uncultivated  and  difficult  art,  there 
is  an  instantaneous  leap  of  recognition  as  the 
thought  emerges  from  the  cloudy  glories  of  the 
poem.  Still,  modern  popular  systems  of  philoso- 
phy are  so  dehumanizing  in  their  tendencies,  and 
so*  productive  of  what  may  be  called  secondary  and 
artificially  planted  instincts,  that  it  is  perhaps  not 
entirely  useless  to  attempt  to  elucidate  the  obvious. 

"The  heavens,"  says  Hazlitt,  "have  gone  far- 
ther off  and  become  astronomical."  The  home- 
like conception  of  the  universe  in  mediaeval  times, 
when  dying  was  like  going  out  of  one  room  into 
another,  and  man  entertained  a  neighborly  feeling 
for  the  angels,  has  a  tendency  to  disappear  as 
science  unfolds  more  and  more  new  infinities  of 
time  and  space,  new  infinities  of  worlds  and  forms 
of  life.  The  curious  notion  has  crept  in,  that 

34 


INTRODUCTION 

man  must  sink  lower  into  insignificance  with 
every  new  discovery  of  the  vastness  and  huge  de- 
sign of  creation.  God  would  seem  to  have  over- 
reached Himself  in  disclosing  His  power  and 
majesty,  stunning  and  overwhelming  the  intellect 
and  heart  with  the  crushing  weight  of  the  evidences 
of  His  Infinity.  We  have  modern  thinkers  regard- 
ing Christian  notions  of  the  Godhead  as  impossible 
to  a  mind  acquainted  with  the  paralyzing  reve- 
lations of  scientific  knowledge.  The  late  John 
Fiske  used  to  deride  what  he  called  the  anthro- 
morphism  of  the  Christian  idea  of  God,  as  of  a 
venerable,  white-bearded  man.  And  these  phil- 
osophers deem  it  more  reverent  to  deny  any 
personal  relationship  between  God  and  man  for 
the  reason  that  God  is  too  great  to  be  interested 
in  man,  and  man  too  little  to  be  an  object  of 
interest. 

Before  indicating  the  essential  error  of  this  atti- 
tude, it  is  necessary  to  state,  merely  for  the  sake 
of  historical  accuracy,  that  the  Christian  concep- 
tion of  the  Godhead,  as  expressed  by  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,  Dante,  Lessius,  and  a  host  of  Christian 

35 


INTRODUCTION 

writers,  has  never  been  approached  in  its  sublime 
suggestions  of  Infinite  and  Eternal  power  and  glory 
by  any  modern  philosopher.  In  the  second  and 
third  Lectures  of  Cardinal  Newman's,  "Scope  and 
Nature  of  University  Education,"  there  is  an  out- 
line of  the  Christian  teaching  of  the  nature  of  God 
which,  in  painstaking  accuracy  of  thought  and 
sheer  grandeur  of  conception,  has  no  counterpart 
in  modern  literature. 

Let  us  always  remember  that  telescope  and  mi- 
croscope in  all  the  range  of  their  discoveries  have 
not  uncovered  the  existence  of  anything  greater 
than  man  himself.  The  most  massive  star 
of  the  Milky  Way  is  not  so  wonderful  as  the 
smallest  human  child.  Moreover  man's  present 
entourage  of  illimitable  space  and  countless  cir- 
cling suns  and  planets  cannot  be  said  to  have  cost 
an  omnipotent  God  more  trouble,  so  to  speak, 
than  a  universe  a  million  times  smaller.  The 
prodigality  of  the  Creator  reveals  His  endless 
resources;  if  the  vision  of  sidereal  abysses  and 
flaming  globes  intimidates  me  and  makes  me  cyn- 
ical about  my  unimportance,  is  it  not  because  I 

36 


INTRODUCTION 

have  lost  the  high  consciousness  of  a  spiritual 
being  and  forgotten  the  unplumbed  chasms  which 
separate  matter  from  mind? 

In  Francis  Thompson's  Catholic  philosophy, 
which  must  be  partially  understood  if  the  reader 
is  to  get  at  the  heart  of  the  "Hound  of  Heaven," 
the  tremendous  manifestations  of  God's  attributes 
of  power  prepare  us  to  expect  equally  tremendous 
manifestations  of  His  attributes  of  love.  The 
more  prodigal  God  is  discovered  to  be  in  lavish 
expenditures  of  omnipotence  in  the  material  uni- 
verse, the  more  alert  the  soul  becomes  to  look 
for  and  to  detect  overwhelming  surprises  of  Di- 
vine Love.  Hence,  to  "Thompson  there  was  noth- 
ing irrational  in  the  special  revelation  of  God  to 
man,  in  His  Incarnation,  His  death  on  the  cross, 
and  His  sacramental  life  in  the  Church.  The 
Divine  energy  of  God's  love,  as  displayed  in  the 
supernatural  revelation  of  Himself,  seems  to  be 
even  vaster  and  more  intense  than  the  Divine 
energy  of  creation  displayed  in  the  revelation  of 
nature.  Every  new  revelation  of  God's  power 
and  wisdom  which  science  unfolds  serves  only  to 

37 


INTRODUCTION 

restore  a  balance  in  our  mind  between  God's 
power  and  God's  love.  The  more  astronomical 
the  heavens  become,  the  closer  they  bring  God  to 
us. 

Another  conception  of  God  to  be  kept  in  mind, 
if  we  are  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  the  "Hound  of 
Heaven,"  is  the  omniscient  character,  the  infinite 
perfection,  of  God's  knowledge.  God  sees  each 
of  us  as  fully  and  completely  as  if  there  were  no 
one  else  and  nothing  else  to  see  except  us.  Prac- 
tically speaking,  God  gives  each  one  of  us  His 
undivided  attention.  And  through  this  spacious 
channel  of  His  Divine  and  exclusive  attention 
pour  the  ocean-tides  of  His  love.  The  weak  soul 
is  afraid  of  the  terrible  excess  of  Divine  Love. 
It  tries  to  elude  it;  but  Love  meets  it  at  every 
cross-road  and  by-path,  down  which  it  would  run 
and  hide  itself,  and  gently  turns  it  back. 

Francis  Thompson,  in  an  interpretation  of  "A 
Narrow  Vessel,"  has  left  us  in  prose  a  description 
of  human  weakness  and  wilfulness  reluctant  of 
its  true  bliss.  The  following  passage  is  an  ex- 
cellent commentary  on  the  "Hound  of  Heaven." 

38 


INTRODUCTION 

"Though  God,"  he  says,  "asks  of  the  soul  but  to 
love  Him  what  it  may,  and  is  ready  to  give  an 
increased  love  for  a  poor  little,  the  soul  feels  that 
this  infinite  love  demands  naturally  its  whole  self, 
that  if  it  begin  to  love  God  it  may  not  stop  short 
of  all  it  has  to  yield.  It  is  troubled,  even  if  it 
did  go  a  brief  way,  on  the  upward  path;  it  fears 
and  recoils  from  the  whole  great  surrender,  the 
constant  effort  beyond  itself  which  is  sensibly 
laid  on  it.  It  falls  back  with  relieved  content- 
ment on  some  human  love,  a  love  on  its  own  plane, 
where  somewhat  short  of  total  surrender  may  go 
to  requital,  where  no  upward  effort  is  needful. 
And  it  ends  by  giving-  for  the  meanest,  the  most 
unsufficing  and  half-hearted  return,  that  utter 
self-surrender  and  self-effacement  which  it  denied 
to  God.  Even  (how  rarely)  if  the  return  be  such 
as  mortal  may  render,  how  empty  and  unsatiated 
it  leaves  the  soul.  One  always  is  less  generous 
to  love  than  the  other." 

God  walks  morning,  noon  and  eve  in  the  garden 
of  the  soul,  calling  it  to  a  happiness  which  af- 
frights it.  And  the  timid  and  self-seeking  soul 

39 


INTRODUCTION 

strives  to  hide  itself  under  the  stars,  under  the 
clouds  of  heaven,  under  human  love,  under  the 
distractions  of  work  and  pleasure  and  study, 
offers  itself  as  a  wistful  servitor  to  child  and  man 
and  nature,  if  they  will  but  afford  it  a  refuge 
from  the  persistent  and  gentle  accents  of  pur- 
suivant Love.  But  all  things  are  in  league  with 
God,  Who  made  and  rules  them.  They  cannot 
conspire  against  Him.  They  betray  the  refugee. 
He  turns  in  abject  surrender,  and  is  astonished 
to  find  the  rest  and  happiness  that  he  quested  for 
so  wildly.  The  Divine  thwartings  which  had 
harassed  the  soul  become  a  tender  mystery  of 
Infinite  Love  forcing  itself  upon  an  unworthy 
and  unwilling  creature.  Someone  has  said  that 
every  life  is  a  romance  of  Divine  Love.  The 
"Hound  of  Heaven"  is  a  version  of  that  romance 
which  smites  the  soul  into  an  humble  mood  of 
acknowledgment  and  penitence. 

JAMES  J.  DALY,  S.  J. 


40 


OF  "THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN' 


RANCIS  THOMPSON,  born  in  Pres- 
ton in  1859,  spent  the  greater  part 
of  his  mature  life  in  London  where 
he  died  in  1907.  He  was  educated 


at  Ushaw  College  near  Durham,  and  afterwards 
went  to  Owens  College,  Manchester,  to  qualify  as  a 
doctor. 

But  his  gift  as  prescriber  and  healer  lay  else- 
where than  in  the  consulting-room.  He  walked  to 
London  in  search  of  a  living,  finding,  indeed,  a 
prolonged  near  approach  to  death  in  its  streets; 
until  at  length  his  literary  powers  were  discovered 
by  himself  and  by  others,  and  he  began,  in  his  later 
twenties,  an  outpouring  of  verse  which  endured 
for  a  half-decade  of  years — his  "Poems,"  his 
"Sister  Songs,"  and  his  "New  Poems." 

"The  Hound  of  Heaven"  "marked  the  return  of 
41 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

the  nineteenth  century  to  Thomas  a  Kempis."  The 
great  poetry  of  it  transcended,  in  itself  and  in  its 
influence,  all  conventions;  so  that  it  won  the  love 
of  a  Catholic  Mystic  like  Coventry  Patmore;  was 
included  by  Dean  Beeching  in  his  "Lyra  Sacra" 
among  its  older  high  compeers;  and  gave  new  heart 
to  quite  another  manner  of  man,  Edward  Burne- 
Jones. 

W.  M. 


42 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 


FLED   Him,   down  the   nights   and 

down  the  days; 
I  fled  Him,  down  the  arches  of  the 

years; 
I  fled  Him,  down  the  labyrinthine  ways 

Of  my  own  mind ;  and  in  the  mist  of  tears 
I  hid  from  Him,  and  under  running  laughter. 
Up  vistaed  hopes,  I  sped; 
And  shot,  precipitated, 
Adown  Titanic  glooms-  of  chasmed  fears, 

From  those  strong  Feet  that  followed,  followed 
after. 

But  with  unhurrying  chase, 

And  unperturbed  pace, 
Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy, 

They  beat — and  a  Voice  beat 

More  instant  than  the  Feet — 
"All  things  betray  thee,  who  betrayest  Me." 
45 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

I  pleaded,  out  law-wise, 
By  many  a  hearted  casement,  curtained  red, 

Trellised  with  intertwining  charities 
(For,  though  I  knew  His  love  Who  followed, 

Yet  was1  I  sore  adread 

Lest,  having  Him,  I  must  have  naught  beside) ; 
But,  if  one  little  casement  parted  wide, 
The  gust  of  His  approach  would  clash  it  to. 
Fear  wist  not  to  evade  as  Love  wist  to  pursue. 
Across  the  margent  of  the  world  I  fled, 

And  troubled  the  gold  gateways  of  the  stars, 
Smiting  for  shelter  on  their  clanged  bars; 

Fretted  to  dulcet  jars 

And  silvern  chatter  the  pale  ports  o'  the  moon. 
I  said  to  dawn:  Be  sudden;  to  eve:     Be  soon — 
With  thy  young  skyey  blossoms  heap  me  over 

From  this  tremendous  Lover! 
Float  thy  vague  veil  about  me,  lest  He  see! 

I  tempted  all  His  servitors,  but  to  find 
My  own  betrayal  in  their  constancy, 
In  faith  to  Him  their  fickleness  to  me, 

Their  traitorous  trueness,  and  their  loyal  deceit. 
To  all  swift  things  for  swiftness  did  I  sue; 

47 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Clung  to  the  whistling  mane  of  every  wind. 
But  whether  they  swept,  smoothly  fleet, 
The  long  savannahs  of  the  blue; 

Or  whether,  Thunder-driven, 
They  clanged  His  chariot  'thwart  a  heaven 
Flashy  with  flying  lightnings  round  the  spurn  o' 

their  feet: — 
Fear  wist  not  to  evade  as  Love  wist  to  pursue. 

Still  with  unhurrying  chase, 

And  unperturbed  pace, 
Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy, 

Came  on  the  following  Feet, 

And  a  Voice  above  their  beat — 
"'Naught  shelters  thee,  who  wilt  not  shelter  Me." 


48 


SOUGHT  no  more  that  after  which  I 

strayed 

In  face  of  man  or  maid ; 
But  still  within  the  little  children's 


eyes 


Seems  something,  something  that  replies, 
They  at  least  are  for  me,  surely  for  me! 
I  turned  me  to  them  very  wistfully; 
But  just  as  their  young  eyes  grew  sudden  fair 

With  dawning  answers  there, 
Their  angel  plucked  them  from  me  by  the  hair. 


50 


OME  then,  ye  other  children, 

Nature's — share 
With  me"   (said  I)   "your  delicate 

fellowship ; 


Let  me  greet  you  lip  to  lip, 

Let  me  twine  with  you  caresses, 

Wantoning 
With  our  Lady-Mother's  vagrant  tresses, 

Banqueting 

With  her  in  her  wind-walled  palace, 
Underneath  her  azured  dais, 
Quaffing,  as  your  taintless  way  is, 

From  a  chalice 
Lucent-weeping  out  of  the  dayspring." 

So  it  was  done: 

7  in  their  delicate  fellowship  was  one — 
Drew  the  bolt  of  Nature's  secrecies. 

/  knew  all  the  swift  importings 
On  the  wilful  face  of  skies; 
I  knew  how  the  clouds  arise, 
51 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Spumed  of  the  wild  sea-snortings; 

All  that's  born  or  dies 
Rose  and  drooped  with;    made  them  shapers 
Of  mine  own  moods,  or  wailful  or  divine — 
With  them  joyed  and  was  bereaven. 
I  was  heavy  with  the  even, 
When  she  lit  her  glimmering  tapers 
Round  the  day's  dead  sanctities. 
I  laughed  in  the  morning's  eyes. 
I  triumphed  and  I  saddened  with  all  weather, 

Heaven  and  I  wept  together, 
And  its  sweet  tears  were  salt  with  mortal  mine; 
Against  the  red  throb  of  its  sunset-heart 
I  laid  my  own  to  beat, 
And  share  commingling  heat; 
But  not  by  that,  by  that,  was  eased  my  human 

smart. 

In  vain  my  tears  were  wet  on  Heaven's  grey  cheek. 
For  ah!  we  know  not  what  each  other  says, 

These  things  and  I;  in  sound  /  speak — 
Their  sound  is  but  their  stir,  they  speak  by  silences. 
Nature,  poor  stepdame,  cannot  slake  by  drouth; 

V 

Let  her,  if  she  would  owe  me, 
52 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Drop  yon  blue  bosom-veil  of  sky,  and  show  me 

The  breasts  o'  her  tenderness: 
Never  did  any  milk  of  hers  once  bless 

My  thirsting  mouth. 
Nigh  and  nigh  draws  the  chase, 

With  unperturbed  pace, 
Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy, 
And  past  those  noised  Feet 
A  Voice  comes  yet  more  fleet — 
"Lo!  naught  contents  thee,  who  content's! 
not  Me." 


53 


AKED   I   wait   Thy   love's   uplifted 

stroke! 
My   harness   piece  by   piece  Thou 

hast  hewn  from  me, 
And  smitten  me  to  my  knee; 
I  am  defenceless  utterly. 
I  slept,  methinks,  and  woke, 
And,  slowly  gazing,  find  me  stripped  in  sleep. 
In  the  rash  lustihead  of  my  young  powers, 

I  shook  the  pillaring  hours 

And  pulled  my  life  upon  me;  grimed  with  smears, 
I  stand  amid  the  dust  o'  the  mounded  years — 
My  mangled  youth  lies  dead  beneath  the  heap. 
My  days  have  crackled  and  gone  up  in  smoke, 
Have  puffed  and  burst  as  sun-starts  on  a  stream. 

Yea,  faileth  now  even  dream 
The  dreamer,  and  the  lute  the  lutanist; 
Even  the  linked  fantasies,  in  whose  blossomy  twist 
I  swung  the  earth  a  trinket  at  my  wrist, 
Are  yielding;  cords  of  all  too  weak  account 

55 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

For  earth,  with  heavy  griefs  so  overplussed. 

Ah!  is  Thy  love  indeed 
A  weed,  albeit  an  amaranthine  weed, 
Suffering  no  flowers  except  its  own  to  mount? 
Ah!  must — 
Designer  infinite! — 
Ah!   must  Thou  char  the  wood  ere  Thou  canst 

limn  with  it? 

My  freshness  spent  its  wavering  shower  i'  the  dust; 
And  now  my  heart  is  as  a  broken  fount, 
Wherein  tear-drippings  stagnate,  spilt  down  ever 

From  the  dank  thoughts  that  shiver 
Upon  the  sighful  branches  of  my  mind. 

Such  is;  what  is  to  be? 
The  pulp  so  bitter,  how  shall  taste  the  rind? 
I  dimly  guess  what  Time  in  mists  confounds; 
Yet  ever  and  anon  a  trumpet  sounds 
From  the  hid  battlements  of  Eternity: 
Those  shaken  mists  a  space  unsettle,  then 
Round    the    half-glimpsed    turrets    slowly    wash 

again; 

But  not  ere  him  who  summoneth 
I  first  have  seen,  enwound 
56 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

With  glooming  robes  purpureal,  cypress-crowned; 
His  name  I  know,  and  what  his  trumpet  saith. 
Whether  man's  heart  or  life  it  be  which  yields 

Thee  harvest,  must  Thy  harvest  fields 

Be  dunged  with  rotten  death? 


57 


OW  of  that  long  pursuit 
Comes  on  at  hand  the  bruit; 
That   Voice    is    round    me    like    a 

bursting  sea: 
"And  is  thy  earth  so  marred, 
Shattered  in  shard  on  shard? 
Lo,  all  things  fly  thee,  for  thou  fliest  Me! 

Strange,  piteous,  futile  thing, 
Wherefore  should  any  set  thee  love  apart? 
Seeing  none  but  I  makes  much  of  naught"   (He 

said), 
"And  human  love  needs  human  meriting: 

How  hast  thou  merited — 
Of  all  man's  clotted  clay  the  dingiest  clot? 

Alack,  thou  knowest  not 
How  little  worthy  of  any  love  thou  art! 
Whom  wilt  thou  find  to  love  ignoble  thee, 

Save  Me,  save  only  Me? 
All  which  I  took  from  thee  I  did  but  take, 
Not  for  thy  harms, 
59 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

But  just  that  thou  might'st  seek  it  in  My  arms. 

All  which  thy  child's  mistake 
Fancies  as  lost,  I  have  stored  for  thee  at  home: 

Rise,  clasp  My  hand,  and  come." 

Halts  by  me  that  footfall: 
Is  my  gloom,  after  all, 

Shade  of  His  hand,  outstretched  caressingly? 
"Ah,  fondest,  blindest,  weakest, 
I  am  He  Whom  thou  seekest! 
Thou  dravest  love  from  thee,  who  dravest  Me." 


UCLA-College  Library 

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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

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